1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computers, and more particularly, to compression blocks input/output (I/O) reduction in a computing environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
In today's society, computer systems are commonplace. Computer systems may be found in the workplace, at home, or at school. Computer systems may include data storage systems, or disk storage systems, to process and store data. In recent years, both software and hardware technologies have experienced amazing advancement. With the new technology, more and more functions are added and greater convenience is provided for use with these electronic appliances. One of the most noticeable changes introduced by recent computer technology is the inclusion of images, video, and audio to enhance the capabilities of computers and electronic appliances. In the age of multimedia, the amount of information to be processed increases greatly. One popular method of handling large data files is to compress the data for storage or transmission. Data compression is widely used to reduce the amount of data required to process, transmit, or store a given quantity of information. Compression can be used, for example, to reduce the storage requirements for files, to increase the communication rate over a channel, or to reduce redundancy prior to encryption for greater security.